The directors of 10 area special events all took the stage at a Sparks Chamber of Commerce luncheon to pitch the changes and innovations that will come to the northern Nevada special events scene this year.
“I want to say thank you for the vision that Sparks had in getting all these events in the same room,” said Jana Smoley, executive director of the Reno Tahoe Open, as she presented this year’s events to the audience.
According to individual reports from event coordinators on economic impact, the 10 events combined are expected to leave a more than $623 million economic impact on northern Nevada in 2010. In addition, the events are slated to flood Reno/Sparks streets with more than 12 million total fun seekers.
“This chamber believes that a good community is the result of strong business and strong business is the result of a good community,” said Mike Draper, vice president of marketing for the Sparks Chamber of Commerce and the emcee for the event on Tuesday.
Star Spangled Sparks
This year’s Sparks Fourth of July celebration, hosted by the Sparks Chamber of Commerce, is expected to draw between 13,000 and 15,000 people to the Sparks Marina, Victorian Square and the Legends at Sparks Marina shopping center.
The 10th annual event kicks off at 6 a.m. at the marina with free hot air balloon rides and not-free Kiwanis Club fundraiser pancake breakfast. A fun run and walk, the milk carton regatta and the Sparks’ Got Talent variety show will all be part of the event.
According to Sparks Chamber of Commerce Executive director Len Stevens, more than 113 people have asked to audition for the talent show. After next week’s auditions, about 40 will be selected to perform a two-and-half hour show that starts at the marina at 11 a.m.
Best in the West Nugget Rib Cook-Off
Twenty-five specially invited rib cookers will take the streets of Sparks in September for the city’s largest special event. The nationally recognized rib cook off will take over Victorian Avenue from Pyramid Way to 14th Street this year.
“We really take over Sparks, don’t we?” said Beth Cooney, cook-off executive director and John Ascuaga’s Nugget’s director of marketing as she looked back at a map of the event projected on the screen behind her.
According to Cooney, each of the 24 rib cookers are at the event by invitation only.
“We only accept the best of the best,” she said.
Total attendance over the course of the five-day event is expected to be about 500,000.
The National Championship Air Races
“We can now say that we are truly a national and international event,” said air races director of marketing Valerie Miller as she announced that the races now have competitors from nine different countries coming to northern Nevada for this year’s event.
The air races boast the highest speeds at the lowest altitudes, bringing high-octane racing to the Stead airport for the past 43 years. The 2009 races broke the event’s speed record, according to Miller, with a jet class plane topping 534 mph. This year, spectators will see the aerobatics of the Canadian Snowbirds nine-plane team as well as the youngest unlimited class pilot take to the skies. The event also hopes to break another record by getting six P-38 airplanes all in the same spot, something that has not happened in decades.
While the Raptors performing planes will be back, the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels will be missing this year.
The air races are the longest running pylon racing event in the world.
“It’s just like NASCAR but in the sky and twice as fast,” Miller said.
The Reno Tahoe Open
The annual golf event held at Montreux in South Lake Tahoe has not only a new date but also a new name this year. The Legends at Sparks Marina is no longer the event’s title sponsor, meaning the name will return to simply The Reno Tahoe Open. The date change will also place the PGA golf tournament at July 12 through 18 on the calendar.
According to executive director Smoley, Reno is only one of 42 cities in the world that have a stop on the PGA tour.
This year, the event will also have a military theme as the Nevada Military Support Alliance is its charity of choice. Military members will be able to attend the event for free, a tent with military displays will be placed at the 18th hole and the closing day will have a military fly over, courtesy of the air races.
The event will also be sponsoring a women’s day, which will include a golf clinic for about 200 followed by a fashion show, shopping and wine tasting. For the children, the Reno Tahoe Open will host a kid’s tent where the young ones can get their own dog tags and go geocaching around the golf course.
In addition, the purse has been increased to $3.5 million.
“There will be a lot of new activities and new stuff going on,” Smoley said.
The Great Reno Balloon Race
Twenty-nine years ago, the first hot air balloon took to the sky in northern Nevada for the Great Reno Balloon Race. Today, the event has skyrocketed to an attendance of 150,000 spectators who watch more than 100 balloons take to the skies over Rancho San Rafael Regional Park.
While event manager Dixie Craig said some new surprises might be coming for the balloon races, scheduled for Sept. 10 through 12, the only change she was willing to announce was a wedding. This year, the balloon races will play host to the wedding of Curt Ainsworth and Stephanie Swartz, two Renown Regional Medical Center employees who were the highest bidders on the wedding package.
The couple will float away after a private ceremony at a nearby gazebo at Rancho San Rafael. After their balloon ride, they will be treated to a private reception for their friends and family. The couple paid $9,901 for the package.
A new addition to the event will also be a flyover on Sept. 11.
Street Vibrations Spring and Fall Rallies
The Street Vibrations events, produced by Roadshows Entertainment, leave a track that is hundreds of bikes long and thousands of dollars deep. The fourth largest motorcycle event in the United States will be roaring into Sparks this year for both the spring and fall rallies, according to event producer Randy Burke. While the fall rally will still make its main home in Reno, the event will plant about 25 factory trucks in Victorian Square, moving half of the event from Reno to Sparks.
“We just finished producing the spring rally in Sparks and it was the largest event to date,” Burke told the crowd at the Grand Sierra Resort.
According to Burke, motorcycle riders range in age from 35 to 75 and are generally from the more affluent side of the tracks.
“These people are enthusiasts, not transients,” Burke said. “They sleep with the right heads in the right beds.”
He added that 48 percent of the event-goers surveyed earned more than $71,000 per year. Burke added that 30 percent of those registered for the event are women.
The Reno Rodeo
More than 780 athletes from across the country will take to the saddle Thursday for the 91st Reno Rodeo. The competitors will be vying for a $500,000 purse and possibly $1 million in other prizes.
The event, attended by more than 140,000 people, is the fifth largest rodeo in the United States.
“While it is the fifth largest, Reno has the highest payout,” rodeo director of communications Steve Schroeder said.
Of those who come to watch the broncos buck, 19 percent are there for the first time while the rest are returners. Schroeder added that 90 percent of the rodeo’s fans come from within 150 miles of the Livestock Events Center. Of those who attend, 67 percent are female.
The venue can seat 9,400 people.
Cinco de Mayo
The annual May 5 celebration of Mexican culture broke a record this year. Over the course of two days, more than 65,000 people showed up at the Grand Sierra Resort parking lot for the event. According to event producers, the attendance was better than they had seen in quite a while.
As such, Cinco de Mayo celebrations will continue to be hosted by the Grand Sierra in 2011, with an expanded event area and more to see.
The event was traditionally held in Sparks, but according to event marketing manager Corrin Keck, “Limited resources meant we could not put together the event as it was seen before in Victorian Square.”
However, she did announce that the 2011 event will feature more than 100 vendors, dancing horses from a Palomino Valley ranch and local wrestling.
According to Keck, about 40 percent of those who attend are not of Mexican descent.
“It stimulates visitors during a really off time of year and helps kick off a special events season that is so vital to northern Nevada,” Keck said of Cinco de Mayo’s importance. “They (special events) strengthen our economy and for many nonprofits, they are an essential revenue stream.”
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